The invention is directed to the bending of electrical conduit or tubes used in building construction or the like and more specifically to the establishing accurate angle bends to a predetermined bend angle.
New construction and remodeling of existing construction continues to consumes a considerable amount of the existing labor force. New and untrained workers are entering this field in mass every day around the world. A large number of these workers are concentrated in the electrical construction field. Electrical construction requires the manual or powered bending of various sized electrical conduit or tubes through which electrical wire is run to comply with various building codes and to aesthetically conform to inner walls and between the floors of the building under construction. It is important as well as a requirement that the conduits or tubes be bent at the correct angles. In general, the requirements of the run of conduit or tubes are estimated by the worker and the conduit is then bent visually by the worker to the calculated/estimated angle and then positioned for installation. This bending or adjustments to the bending may require several such steps before the conduit or tube is bent at the corrected desired angle. This operation requires a considerable amount of time a lot of which could be saved if a precise bend at the desired angle could be accomplished in a single operation rather than repeated trial and error.
Presently, the standard bending tool has rough lines or groves or an embedded bubble level to help guide the worker with a very rough estimate of the angle the worker is attempting to bend. Generally, each bend requires several attempts as noted above before the conduit or tube is close enough to the desired bend angle to be finally installed. These existing devices are designed for use on a substantially level surface, but as a practical matter level surfaces are few and far between on actual construction sites which tend to render the angle indication devices of the present art useless.
There has not been a truly suitable device for accurately bending conduit or tubes used to run electrical wires in building construction until the emergence of the instant invention.